WCK and Ground Fighting

[anerlich]

All of that is good, but what about when the opponent takes you down and is stuck on you? You can't just kick them off. So all of that is as useless as standing skills when someone is mounted on you. You have to know what to do. VT won't give it to you.

Um ... yeah. I think I mentioned that I have trained BJJ and hold a brown belt. I know the limitations of the WC approach.

We had a ground fighting thread in the Shaolin forum. Songshan Shaolin has a body of ground skills called ditanggong, not too dissimilar to street BJJ, with the objective of quick joint destruction or positional escape to get back to one's feet. Think, in ancient times, on a battlefield. You're rolling on the ground and another dude running by sticks you with a spear, or the guy you're tangled with guts you. The goal is never to stay on the ground as in sportive BJJ. There are some BJJ guys who make the mistake of training sportive BJJ so much they think it's street safe. Then they get the old GNP because they weren't focused on defending punches, which aren't allowed in sport.

True. Some Silat lineages have some pretty effective groundwork as well.

[anerlich]

No rules on the street ... If I can stick my finger in your eye I am doing it ... If I have to snap your finger back or rip your ear off I am doing it. If I have to bite whatever you present to me I am doing it. My technique ends when I get home.

So you get taken down, mounted. Probably a bad idea to start a fishhooking and eyegouging contest from a position where the other guy can do the same thing from a position of advantage. You're nastier than him .... OK. So how did he get on top of you in the first place? And what makes you so sure he isn't at least equally committed to his survival and your destruction?

Why would a trained competition fighter be any less able than you to rip your ear off, snap your finger, bite or eye gouge?

Draculino has some good vids on Youtube about why this crap won't work against a decent grappler.

[Robinhood]

So you get taken down, mounted. Probably a bad idea to start a fishhooking and eyegouging contest from a position where the other guy can do the same thing from a position of advantage. You're nastier than him .... OK. So how did he get on top of you in the first place? And what makes you so sure he isn't at least equally committed to his survival and your destruction?

Why would a trained competition fighter be any less able than you to rip your ear off, snap your finger, bite or eye gouge?

Draculino has some good vids on Youtube about why this crap won't work against a decent grappler.

Well if you ever meet someone with real skill you will find out quickly that you can't do the same thing right back, and you will feel like you are a white belt all over sgain and nothing works.

[WingChunNovice]

So you get taken down, mounted. Probably a bad idea to start a fishhooking and eyegouging contest from a position where the other guy can do the same thing from a position of advantage. You're nastier than him .... OK. So how did he get on top of you in the first place? And what makes you so sure he isn't at least equally committed to his survival and your destruction?

Why would a trained competition fighter be any less able than you to rip your ear off, snap your finger, bite or eye gouge?

Draculino has some good vids on Youtube about why this crap won't work against a decent grappler.

You missed my point. My point was no rules on the street (for either guy) and that everything depends on the skill set of the practitioner and his or her dedication to their respective art(s).

I have a ton of respect for ground fighting ... I am not bashing it in any way. Ill check out the draculino videos, thanks for the lead.

[LaRoux]

Well if you ever meet someone with real skill you will find out quickly that you can't do the same thing right back, and you will feel like you are a white belt all over sgain and nothing works.

Real skill? You mean like a BJJ brown belt who has spent the last 8 or 10 years dedicated to taking people to the ground and then effing them up there?

[LaRoux]

Yes, with proper alignment and body mechanics I can hit pretty hard in a short distance (even from the mount). So I do agree how they are applied and expressed are different ... but they still apply

You can hit hard from the bottom mount? Well guess what? Physics, leverage and mechanics dictate that the person with top mount can hit significantly harder. He also has many options in terms of joint breaks and and chokes.

[anerlich]

You missed my point. My point was no rules on the street (for either guy) and that everything depends on the skill set of the practitioner and his or her dedication to their respective art(s).

The way you presented it earlier, that "point", if it deserves that description, was easy to miss. You were basically claiming that because you were prepared to fight dirty, that would give you some advantage over competition fighters.

The only way that would work is if the combat athlete were somehow bound by competition rules in the street. If you think that's likely, make sure you are fully insured.

[anerlich]

Yes, with proper alignment and body mechanics I can hit pretty hard in a short distance (even from the mount). So I do agree how they are applied and expressed are different ... but they still apply

If someone is good enough to take you down, and get and keep the mount on you in a non-compliant situation, you for all intents and purposes HAVE no alignment and no body mechanics. Best you can hope for is a punch using just your arm muscles. He has gravity on his side and can use body mechanics to punch. Unless you hold the shotput world record, all my money's going on the other guy.

Turning a grappling fight into a punching contest from under the mount is a really bad tactical move, almost as bad as starting an eye gouging or finger snapping contest from there. If you weren't able to KO him while the fight was still standing, your chances of doing so after he's taken you down and mounted you are basically nonexistent.

You lack basic understanding of positional control. If you claim to respect grappling arts, then for f***s sake go and study them enough to understand the basic principles thereof.

I myself had over 20 years experience in striking arts when I started BJJ. I quickly found that that experience was not a lot of help, and in some ways it was a hindrance as there were quite a few things I had to unlearn or seriously modify.

[anerlich]

Of course, but time and $$ prevent this in reality. I mean Graham's example of training 7-10 hrs WCK and playing league squash on other nights rather than being a gym rat and going to a BJJ class is probably more the norm than not. And that's a perfectly healthy thing to do.

So what to do?

The TKD mcdojos easily handle this by hiring a guy to teach a grappling class once a week, and many do affiliations.

But WCK is probably trained in the vast majority of situations in a small club environment. Not a lot of large mcdojos teaching WCK out there. So we need some more realistic recommendations for people.

My WC instructor is a Machado BJJ affiliate. He runs 3 BJJ classes a week one a daytime I can't get to, plus has an excellent wrestling coach (Persian, started wrestling when he was four) who teaches several classes a week also - Killer strength and cardio workouts as well as solid technique.

I found this still wasn't enough, and to improve in BJJ at a pace I was happy with I had to seek additional instruction at a school run by a senior black belt.

Basically, IMO, you have your own goals. Your Sifu may only be able to help you with some of them, and you may have to make your own arrangements to get where you want to be.

Ultimately responsibility for your success in training is yours, not your Sifu's.

[anerlich]

Well if you ever meet someone with real skill you will find out quickly that you can't do the same thing right back, and you will feel like you are a white belt all over sgain and nothing works.

If you've been following the discussion, I've already taken this person down and got mount on him, despite his "real skill". If I get this far on a person with "real skill", I reckon I rate as a purple belt at least ...

So I can take this person with "real skill" down and mount him, but then somehow find that he can eyegouge and fishhook me while I can't do it to him?

[Sean66]

Good posts anerlich.

Although the strategies are different, I see a lot of similarities in ving tsun and bjj - use of leverage and alignment to gain positional control while/or before striking (in ving tsun) or submitting (in street bjj).

[WingChunNovice]

You can hit hard from the bottom mount? Well guess what? Physics, leverage and mechanics dictate that the person with top mount can hit significantly harder. He also has many options in terms of joint breaks and and chokes.

I didn't say bottom ... please don't put words in my mouth. Agreed that the person on top depending on skill level has the advantage.

[WingChunNovice]

The way you presented it earlier, that "point", if it deserves that description, was easy to miss. You were basically claiming that because you were prepared to fight dirty, that would give you some advantage over competition fighters.

The only way that would work is if the combat athlete were somehow bound by competition rules in the street. If you think that's likely, make sure you are fully insured.

Agree it's tough to misunderstand someone when you are reading text and seems people are quick to jump to conclusions. I understand passion in defending arts and positions, nature of the beast.

My last street fight was 22 years ago vs. a college football player. He went to the hospital and I went home. I would much prefer to share a pint and let things slide these days.

Getting old ... I train because I enjoy it, not to be the toughest man on planet earth.

[k gledhill]

Knowing a 'sporting' version of jiu-jitsu can get you in trouble without knowing 'street' jiu-jitsu. Even 4-5 years of sport Jiu jitsu you can get punched out easily during a 'street' engagement without knowing how to deal with a striking scenario.
A 4-5 year sporting jiu-jitsu student contacted the Gracies because it happened to him during a street fight....
So the Gracies put out a YouTube saying that learning the sporting defense for chokes, arm bars on your back will leave you wide open to striking in a real fight, plus being in a scenario of ground with more than one person involved in a street fight just emphasizes stand-up abilities...Ving Tsun. The two together.

[Wayfaring]

Andrew's on a roll and layin' out knowledge!!!

BTW for reference that "bro you fd up a long time ago" picture is a classic quote from Kurt Osiander, one of the main instructors at Ralph Gracie's school in San Fran. If you take a private from him, you will hear that phrase many, many times.